Gov. Kathy Hochul was one of a handful of Democratic governors to stockpile pills used in medication abortion amid fears the U.S. Supreme Court could restrict access three years ago.
But a feared shortage of the drug never materialized. Now, 150,000 pills in the state’s possession have all expired — and not a single one was distributed.
The state Department of Health says it will soon destroy its reserve of misoprostol pills, which is enough for 12,500 doses. That’s in contrast to California, which took steps to distribute its supply to providers, and Oregon, which reupped its stock at no cost.
Some legal threats to medication abortion remain. But with misoprostol still readily available, New York has no current plans to restock its supply, according to the Department of Health.
“Despite ongoing politically motivated attacks on reproductive healthcare across the nation, New York remains a safe harbor for anyone seeking these critical services,” said Cadence Acquaviva, a spokesperson for the agency.
Hochul’s decision to amass a major reserve of misoprostol in 2023 came after a federal judge’s ruling in Texas called into question whether mifepristone, a separate drug used in medication abortion, would be taken off the market.
The state Department of Health would go on to acquire the 150,000 misoprostol pills at a cost of $112,000, according to the agency. But when separate court rulings kept mifepristone on the shelves, the state never tapped into its stockpile.
Acquaviva said the stockpile was meant to ensure New Yorkers “could access this safe and legal reproductive health medicine” amid legal uncertainty.
Misoprostol and mifepristone are the two major drugs used in medication abortion, which accounted for 63% of all abortions in the national healthcare system in 2023, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
Often, the two drugs are prescribed together, with a patient taking mifepristone first and following up with misoprostol. But doctors can also prescribe a course that solely consists of 12 misoprostol pills to end an early-term pregnancy.
Washington, Massachusetts, Oregon and California were among the other Democratic-led states to stock up on misoprostol in the wake of conflicting court rulings on mifepristone in 2023.
Since then, the states have taken different approaches to their expiring supplies.
In California, health officials took steps to distribute more than 12,000 misoprostol doses to healthcare providers across the state about a year before they expired, according to LAist.
Washington state took steps to destroy its $1.3 million stockpile last year, while Oregon state officials were able to swap 22,500 doses for a new batch that expires in 2028 at no cost, according to the Oregon Capital Chronicle.
In 2023, Hochul announced plans to purchase 150,000 doses of misoprostol — or approximately 1.8 million pills, enough for a five-year supply. The Department of Health started with a smaller purchase, buying 12,500 doses from drug wholesaler AmerisourceBergen, now known as Cencora. The agency declined to purchase more after the feared shortage never materialized.
New York’s pills are currently being held in a secure location, according to the health department. They’ll be destroyed the next time the agency issues a contract to dispose of expired items in its Medical Emergency Response Cache.
Federal courts, meanwhile, continue to consider the availability of mifepristone.
In 2024, the Supreme Court dismissed the case at the center of the Texas judge’s decision that led the Democratic governors to build up a misoprostol stockpile, though the court’s ruling was on technical grounds.
In May of this year, a separate Supreme Court order kept mifepristone available via telehealth appointments while a lawsuit works its way through the lower courts.
On Wednesday, three states — Louisiana, Alabama and Arkansas — sued New York and two other states in federal court over their shield laws, which protects providers who prescribe abortion pills and mail them to patients in other states.
“As anti-abortion extremists in other states try to reach across our borders and threaten patients and providers, New York will stand up for them,” Hochul said in a statement.
David Lombardo is host of WCNY’s “The Capitol Pressroom,” a member of the New York Public News Network.
